Church History Tour- Days 1-3

We decided to take the family on a two week church history tour.  We rented an RV which I think overall was a great idea!  The kids were able to spread out more so there was definitely a lot less fighting.  The first couple of days in the RV were a little rough but once we got everything figured out it was pretty much smooth sailing.  We also checked out the last three Harry Potter audio books from the library and the kids loved listening to them.  We almost completed all three of the books by the time we got home!  I think each book was about 20 hours long!  Yes, we did a lot of driving!

Day 1-July 13th:

Traveled from Florida to Alabama

We stayed at a nice campground where the kids got to swim, play on a playground, and throw rocks in the pond.

We ran into some issues: It took us a while to figure out how to work the generator and AC.  Nathan and I had a miscommunication where I thought he said we were all set with bedding but he said the master bed was the only bedding set we had.  Neither one of us packed bedding for the kids so we had to be very creative the first night.  We bought some extra bedding the following day. 

Day 2- July 14th:

Traveled from Alabama to Virginia (went through Tennessee).

This campsite had a stream running through it.  The kids had fun wading in it but they said it was cold.

We ran into some more issues this day as well...while the kids were playing in the water I decided to start making dinner.  I started to defrost some meat in the microwave and the breaker turned off.  Apparently you can't run the microwave while the AC is on.  We thought it was the outside breaker but when Nathan tried flipping the breaker nothing inside the RV was working.  Nathan went and found the owner of the campground and he couldn't figure out what was wrong either.  He told us to just move to another campsite.  We moved to another site and it still wasn't working so we moved to yet another campsite.  Still wasn't working.  Nathan called the owners of the RV and they weren't helpful at all!  "That's weird!  That's never happened to us before!"  REALLY!?!  Eventually one of our neighbors came over and was trying to help us.  Apparently the RV itself has a breaker and that was the one that turned off.  Nathan flipped the breaker but it still wasn't working?!?  Luckily our neighbor had a long enough extension cord that we were able to plug in and test the 2nd campsite to see if that would work for us.  Thankfully it did!  I guess the third site we went to the outside breaker wasn't working and that was why it still wasn't working for us.  We moved for the 4th time back to the 2nd campsite.  

Day 3-July 15th:

Traveled from Virginia to Pennsylvania and then New York (went through West Virginia where we attended church and Maryland)

Boys sleeping

Blakely pretending to sleep

Blair

I'm pretty sure this was inside Joseph and Emma Smith's house in Harmony, Pennsylvania.

Outside Joseph and Emma's house

Harmony is where the Priesthood was restored and where Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were baptized.  Most of the Book of Mormon was translated here.

Dyer wanted to go see the grave of Joseph and Emma's first born son.

Emma's parent's house.

The kids got to feel how heavy the plates probably were.